It had started at the Great Fracture. One moment, Elias was standing on the edge of the Observation Deck in Neo-Aris; the next, the gravity well had inverted. The city didn't crumble downward—it shattered outward, leaving thousands of citizens suspended in a permanent, terminal descent through the atmosphere.
Elias adjusted his aero-flaps, the small carbon-fiber wings attached to his suit. He used them to steer toward a floating crate—a remnant of a cargo ship that had succumbed to the same fate. He kicked off a piece of passing debris, a scorched recliner, and caught the edge of the crate. Falling Falling
At first, there was screaming. Thousands of voices cut through the air, a choir of terror that eventually faded as people drifted too far apart to be heard. Now, there was only the rush of the slipstream. It had started at the Great Fracture
"Still falling?" a woman’s voice crackled back. It was Sarah. He’d picked up her signal yesterday. She was somewhere roughly four miles "below" him, though direction had become a suggestion rather than a rule. Elias adjusted his aero-flaps, the small carbon-fiber wings